Sunday, 6 November 2011

usual walk around siddal, bank top and town
a fantastic day weather wise been so warm for the time of year,the red admiral i saw at bank top would testify.birds were very quiet 60+ common gulls in fields on coal pit lane though 3 lesser black backed gulls flew east,usual wrens by kitsons garden center.green woodpecker on beacon hill.bailey hall bank had decent tit flock but little else. the hebble from nestle to paris gates had 4 grey wagtails and a dipper.

alsothere is a good pied wagtail roost at tesco's in king cross with 35+ roosting in the trees by the car wash shed

Friday, 28 October 2011

been very quite here the last few days, the thrushes seemed to have moved on. the main highlight was a peregrine over siddal on wednesday about 200yds from the house.6 meadow pipits and 1 skylark still around coal pit lane along with 60+ common gulls.good numbers of redpolls 57 at elland gp on thursday.

Sunday, 24 April 2011

this is what ive been looking for.................5 mill working girls who all died in the wellington mill explosion in 1874 the oldest girl was 18 and the youngest only 8!over 20000 people lined the streets of Halifax on the day of their funeral and over 5000 alone were in stoney royd for the burial,i put a little trinket down payed my respects and carried on.

Friday, 15 April 2011

on monday 12th april 2011 4 bee-eaters were found in todmorden and roosted for the night in a garden. this is what the finder had to say......................

''I knew of no way of alerting local birder-conservationists without activating the twitcher grapevine. When I explained the reasons for my decision not to contact you folk, Andrew saw my point.

But there was also a wider point that I perhaps didn't make clearly enough. Over and above wanting to avoid disturbance to a 'shy' and 'wary' species of bird whilst roosting, wanting to increase the chances of them staying around, and potential nuisance to my near neighbours in whose gardens the tree(s) happened to be, I also wanted to keep twitchers away because, in these days of climate change, I regard their activities as verging on the anti-social.

Conversations with a few friends locally confirm that I'm far from alone in this view. They have mostly said that they'd have responded in the same way that I did. The reality is, therefore, that the Bee-eaters might still be in the Valley, being watched by people who haven't told you about them because you are, sadly but inevitably, associated with twitchers.

If you don't make it clear that people can contact you without exposing themselves to an avalanche of car-borne individuals who only want to add the birds to their lists, then these kinds of situations are only likely to become more common.

I'm not sure how practicable it would be, but I'd like to see bird clubs dissociate themselves from twitchers. As well as the question of climate change ( and car fumes being implicated in the massive loss of insect life ), these people are still ( if a recent BBC4 film was representative ) mainly socially inept sexist men, abandoning spouses and children to gratify an obsession. They bring birdwatching/birding into disprepute, and treat sentient beings, birds, as commodities, to be collected. In the process they debase the language of birdwatching, so we end up with 'ticks', 'megas'. 'getting' birds, and evven 'not needing' birds already listed!

If only for conservation reasons, it's arguably now become socially responsible to withdraw co-operation from this kind of activity. So perhaps there's an opportunity for Halifax birders to take a lead, - and do yourselves some good in the process.

If I find some time (!!) I may write this up in an article, but will in any case be interested to see what you think. The reality is that quite a lot of us out here, feel the way I do on this.

That said, I hope you get the chance to see the Bee-eaters. They're magnificent.

With all best wishes

Brian.

( p.s by all means circulate this as apropriate ).''

to be honest i think the record is bollocks and made up to make a point,

firstly it would be the first april record for yorkshire,though 2 the next day at spurn does seem to add some credence to the record.

secondly in this modern world we live in and despite being in someones garden they were not photographed by any of the 3+ people that saw them

and lastly the comment in the e-mail seems mocking........

''That said, I hope you get the chance to see the Bee-eaters. They're magnificent.''

Saturday, 26 March 2011

chiffchaff's were singing as soon as we got on to the hebble trail and they continued to sing all along our walk,i counted a total of 18 singing birds(pinky spots on map),god only knows how many i missed.spring has truly arrived.

we walked nearly the whole of the southowram parish boundary (we excluded the shibden park bit)

Monday, 21 March 2011

mallard and canada goose have only been the highlights over the last few days,so today i finished work early as it was the first spring like day of the year

a few meadow pipits singing along with a kestrel were seen along the walk to the res, the conversion of the boathouse into a scouting boaty place seems to nearing completion and looks quite secure so the pissheads hopefully wont get in and wreck it!!

i was at the far side of the res when i clocked a large bird heading towards me from the direction of the radio mast,i realised it was a raptor and having seen a few buzzards up here over the years i thought it may be one,but theirs alway but! i noticed the 'droopy' wings 'OSPREY' i shouted to no one! even the sheep looked uninterested! i hoped it would come over the res but carried on its north-easterly flight taking it more towards oxygrains bridge. i texted dave sutcliffe who was at cold edge dams

so at last after 26 years of birding in Halifax i finally got osprey on the list (about time) will enjoy a few beers tonight!!!!!

osprey

the 'with'

also have a look at THE GREEN WITHENS list which has photos of nearly every birds i ever seen here

Monday, 24 January 2011

good numbers of house sparrows at both southowram and lower edge elland.the southowram sparrows numbered 54 on pinnar lane and at elland counted 46 in the hedge rows around old earth school also here were 13 goldfinch,8 greenfinch and 67 siskin in trees on shaw lane.

22 waxwings on lower edge were the first of the year.a female goosander on the hebble by the water treatment works on huddersfield road was the closest to halifax ive seen.